I hope everyone had a nice holiday. Ours was a bit of a mixed bag since Bitter’s grandfather died on Friday at age 91. Her other grandfather died when she was a year old, but both her grandmothers are still living. Enough about that, maybe I have some news I’ve been collecting. Some of it might be a bit dated, but hopefully obscure enough you might not have seen it:

Looks like Miss Sloane was a box office bust. This is a good cultural indicator, but when is it ever fun to pay someone to give a political lecture. There are plenty of people on the Internet who will give you one for free!

The microstamping suit in California has been reinstated. I think we’re going to see a lot of movement on legal cases now that there will be an Administration change. However, it’s probably worth noting that replacing Scalia with another judge who’s solid on the issue doesn’t get us anywhere. I’ve said for a while I think Roberts is the soft underbelly of the Heller majority, and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

25 Responses to “Weekly Gun News – Edition 52”

The fight against new restrictions in the EU is not over yet, although we’re in a bad spot.

We’ve been able to push back against the original sweeping semi-auto rifle ban that the EU Commission put on the table merely five days after the Bataclan attack.

We’re still facing a magazine ban (max 10 rounds for rifle, 20 for handguns; what about mags that fit both handguns and rifles?) and extra layers of red tape. Next six month will be decisive.

Contrast between freedom-hating and old (decrepit?) western Europe and eastern Europe is obvious. Eastern Europe still has vivid memories of where statism leads. Western governments are pushing hard to ban as much stuff as possible (at EU-level, so that they can claim “it comes from Brussels, not us!”).

Only positive note from that shit show: European gun owners have been able to come together.

However, it’s probably worth noting that replacing Scalia with another judge who’s solid on the issue doesn’t get us anywhere. I’ve said for a while I think Roberts is the soft underbelly of the Heller majority, and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

Roberts isn’t going anywhere, but Ginsburg is older than dirt and ain’t getting any younger.

Replacing Scalia AND Ginsburg with solid Originalists would leave us a majority even if Roberts went squishy, and if he didn’t it’d be a 6-3 victory instead of a 5-4.

Bring Back Bluedogs – ughh.. I can’t stand that guy’s writing style. All the “heck, goshdarn, blah blah”,
“But y’know, blah blah”,
“[rhetorical question followed by forced folksy vernacular]”. Guy probably wrote it at 2am after a few drinks and didn’t bother to reread in the morning with an eye towards succinctness.

Couldn’t make it through, so skipped to and skimmed the end. Here’s my TL;DR:

Demos are out of touch with dumb people, need to be part of solution rather than looking down noses, get candidates that bridge the gap by having a foot in the hick swamp and one foot in the educated circles.

Hmm.. I guess that’s one way to look at it.. more understanding is always better, but the article still starts from the perspective of “we lost because the other side is too dumb to know what’s good for them”.

But this line of his kills me:
“This is an insurgency; we’re the Wolverines, they’re the Soviets. We have to fight on a shoestring budget and make Republicans bleed everywhere we can. We need to hold their feet to the fire on Trump. We need all hands on deck for this evolution, ya’ll, or there’s a damn good chance our country could go by the wayside.”
THEY’RE the Wolverines? Wow.. A) good luck if your blue audience relates to or gets the reference, bud; B) I think dude needs to go back and watch that movie again. The original. I agree that we ALL need to hold Trump’s feet the fire, as with every president, but sorry – I see the narrow avoidance of Hillary as — I say, I say, an enorm’us victory for the rebellion, a blow to the darn empire.

“As it turns out, NAGR is just one of a pack of ankle-biter groups, all of which trace back to Mike Rothfeld.”

But Mike Rothfeld also traces directly to the Rand Paul campaigns, so, does that make Rand Paul an ankle-biter?

Tracing all of those groups to Mike Rothfeld was darn good work, but now to win the bonus points and extra credit, what is the common denominator of all the people associated with Mike Rothfeld and his groups?

Mike Rothfeld used to conduct ankle-biter activist training (for all “causes”) sponsored by the National Right to Work Committee, which is another front organization. He was preceded in that by Huck Walther, who was more of the Christian Reconstructionist persuasion.

It could be made even better if Congress would grant a long-standing request by the judiciary and establish a couple of hundred new judge positions. While it makes me gag to hear judges complain about workload, this is an opportunity to really move the needle.

The Ninth is long past needing to be split into at least two (possibly three) circuits. Reapportion existing Ninth judges between the new circuits and then expand all circuits everywhere.

Trials are backing up so long in the federal courts that criminal proceedings have slowed to the point where claims that the process is unconstitutional are actual real concerns for the courts. Justice Roberts testified on it a few years ago.